Extra lung capacity?

I had a really great run yesterday. 2 weeks after Sawtooth and I literally felt like my lungs were twice their normal size. I've been pretty busy this trip with the wedding and then working all of last week in Galway so I just ran for 30 mins Wednesday morning and for an hour Thursday morning. Both runs felt OK, taking it pretty easy, working out a few kinks. But yesterday while my legs were still a little tired, I felt like I had a serious amount of oxygen to burn and before I knew it an easy 6 miler had turned into a tempo 10 miler! I was surprised considering how lazy I've been feeling - which probably has to do with HOW MUCH I'VE BEEN EATING. Seriously, I can't stop. You'd swear I'd been living on rations for a month. I'm just hoping I snap out of it when I get back to Mpls this week!

I work tomorrow and Tuesday and fly back Wednesday morning so I'll probably just get one or two short runs in and then try to get another 10-12 miler later in the week and again at the weekend. TCM is 2 weeks today so I think it's just a matter of feeling in shape again and not doing anything too crazy. It's anyone's guess how I'll feel on the day. I have to believe I'd be well able for 3:40-3:45 but I think I'll just start out slow enough and see how it goes. And maybe somewhere along the way I'll work out why I'm even running it. Though I am looking forward to meeting (and feeding!) Joel and Scott at the start.

In other news, I launched my career as a motivational speaker this weekend. My sister's Gaelic Football team Eastern Harps (not that you would know from the website that a Ladies' team even exists...) were playing in the County Final on Saturday and the previous weekend at her wedding I'd promised the manager I'd talk to the team at their pre-match meeting on Friday night. He'd heard about the 100 miler and figured I'd have something to say about mental toughness, sticking with it when the going gets tough etc... Well, I was more nervous preparing for that little spiel than I had been before the race! These are girls who've trained for years for a match like this and here I was (severly lacking in football skills) trying to figure out what I could say that would (1) sound like I knew what I was talking about and (2) avoid them laughing at me. They won the match anyway and while I can't take any credit for it I got lots of thanks from the girls afterwards so I figure it didn't do any harm. And I guess I got to use up some of that extra lung capacity...

They played a great game, they were 2 points down at one stage after having been ahead by 3 and hadn't scored in about 10 minutes. It was midway through the second half, a dangerous time to start thinking there's no way back, but they held it together and scored 3 points in a row. And pretty much stayed on top from then on winning by 4 points in the end. They've worked hard all year for this and totally deserved it on the day. Next up is the first round of the provincial (Connacht) championship in 2 weeks time.

end of post.